Decision at Council
by Pat Foley
Summary: A petition against an ancient Vulcan law forces Amanda into a dilemma. Revised and expanded. Holography, series 3D
1. Chapter 1

**Decision at Council**

By

Pat Foley

Amanda's council attendant brought a scheduling notice to her attention with the daily summaries.

"My lady, there is a decision requiring the vote of all Council members, not merely a quorum. You must therefore attend Council next Secanth. I have put the relevant documents in your computer files."

"Thank you, T'vian." She pushed aside the draft of the academic paper she was writing and went through the Council documents. And then she drew a breath in dismay. She read through them again and then hit the print key, spreading the High Vulcan documents out before her.

The case was a simple one. The situation was this. T'Lisel, a young woman of the distant Soton clan, and the consort of Sarumel, had applied and been accepted to Starfleet Academy. She planned to attend and petitioned for the necessary travel documents. Her bondmate then requested an injunction against her leaving the planet, on the grounds that her intended career was physically hazardous, and that by Vulcan law she had no right to endanger her person: his property. The court ruled in favor of Sarumel, and T'Lisel's legal advisors had taken the case up through successive councils.

Her own ear keyed to anything involving Starfleet, Amanda had heard of the case on the news as it wound its way through the Vulcan judicial system. Spock, of course, had sidestepped the Vulcan paperwork by having petitioned for dual citizenship, and obtaining a Terran Federation passport. And of course he was male, so he avoided T'Lisel's particular problem. T'Pring might have disapproved of her bondmate entering a Federation military service, but she had no legal recourse to stop him if she did. As Sarumel had. T'Lisel's appeal had failed at the lower council levels, and now it was to be heard at High Council. And as it was a case that affected Surak's philosophies, and thus Vulcan society as a whole, all High Council members were required to sit and render judgment. Including her.

This was a case she had found …disturbing, not merely because it involved Starfleet and made her think of Spock's leave-taking. It raised another issue she tried not to think about.

Vulcan was a highly civilized society -- in most respects. But it fell down alarmingly when it came to anything related to Vulcan biology. Particularly in its attitudes toward women.

Women had equal rights on Vulcan for all ostensible purposes. And the highest voice on the planet, the court of no appeal was T'Pau, the Matriarch of all, though she used her power rarely.

But there was a subtext outside of the obvious whereby not all women had equality. Women unbonded or widowed did have the same status as men. Chattel, those who challenged, had no rights at all. But wives, consorts, female bondmates had a curious, peculiarly Vulcan status. Such women were the legal equivalent of men in almost every respect. They could vote, own property, sign contracts, run a business, testify or bring a case in court, sit at council and render judgment. Virtually no profession was closed to them, though Amanda had never actually seen a female guardsman. In almost every legal and personal interaction, they had equivalent rights. But an ancient Vulcan law claimed that although equal in every other respect, such women's physical persons were the legal property of their bondmate.

It went back of course, to Pon Far, as most of these outmoded customs did. Societies tended to develop rituals, taboos, and customs to appease certain unworkable or frightening situations. How many independent human cultures had mid-winter ceremonies, a reassurance when the light was at it shortest? And Vulcans in ancient times had fought for possession of women, still did today in their divorce ceremonies. So it was no very great surprise to discover, in a race where the males had a potentially fatal mating fever, that their legal system provided for the succession of the race by this questionable device. She had been advised of it before she married, and she couldn't say it hadn't given her pause. One of many things that had given her pause before she'd taken that fateful step. But when she'd tried to talk to Sarek about it, she just got that slightly puzzled look from him. Vulcan males didn't really think about it, it was as natural a scenario as gravity to them. A cultural blindness. And Vulcan women took it with equanimity too. Or seemed to. Her few attempts over the years to discuss it, with such few Vulcan women as she had felt equal to broaching such a question, had given her the same, slightly puzzled brow. And so she had just dropped it.

That technically she was legally Sarek's property had seemed to have little bearing on most aspects of her normal life. She had her career, she sat on the highest council on Vulcan, and though Sarek could, technically give her orders in the emphatic mode, orders he had every right to expect obeyed, he seldom did. He did manifest an occasionally proprietary attitude. He did sometimes tend to be overbearing when it came to issues of her health or safety. But his life was, after all, somewhat tied to hers and thus a logical concern of his. But in her normal daily life, the most obvious aspects of the Vulcan laws were the fact that he apparently had a legal right not to let her cut her hair, and that, of course, he could take her to bed whenever he wished. As if any Vulcan bondmate would stop a Vulcan male in that pursuit. As for her hair, it was too long, but she'd adjusted to the nuisance. Like every other Vulcan wife.

So she'd grown used to the law, if not entirely comfortable with the idea of it. It had been challenged before a few times in distant history, but never overturned. But now was being challenged again.

She grabbed her documents and went in search of her husband, entering his office without preamble.

"Sarek. Do you know about this case?"

He glanced at the sheaf of papers she put on his pristine desk. "Naturally. It comes before Council next Secanth. You must attend to render judgment."

"You expect me to rule on this?"

He blinked and looked at her. "It is your responsibility as clan leader."

She sank into a chair opposite him. "But…Sarek. You can't expect me to rule against this?"

Sarek paused. "Do you plan to approve her request?"

"Do you plan to uphold the current law?" Amanda countered.

"Yes."

She eyed him, and then looked down at the papers before them. "I know you don't approve of Starfleet. You would have done anything to keep--" she hesitated over saying the name.

"My opinion on that organization has no bearing on this decision."

She was shaking her head, thinking of the upcoming vote. "Sarek…how can I do this?"

For a moment he stared at her, his expression blank. "Amanda, you must. All the High Council must render judgment in a case involving Surak's constructs. It is the law."

"But you're going to vote **against** it."

"Yes."

"How will it…it look, if I vote for it?"

He sat back, shaking his head. "How will it look?"

"To …to appear to oppose you. Publicly. Before all of Vulcan?"

Sarek's brow creased in puzzlement. "If you so vote, you will not be the only one holding that position. You will not stand alone, regardless that I vote in opposition."

Amanda shook her head in frustration. "Oh for -- then, how will you **feel**?"

"How will I feel?"

"Would you stop repeating what I say?"

"Amanda, you are required to render judgment as clan leader in your own right. Your opinion need not be in accordance with mine."

"Logically, perhaps, but I'm not talking about logic."

"Then I don't understand."

"You intend to vote, for the continued legal status of woman as the physical property of their bondmates. If I vote against it, do you think it wouldn't change anything between us?"

Sarek regarded her calmly. "Amanda, I think you misunderstand this situation. This resolution legally must be brought before Council. Lower courts simply cannot rule on a major change to Surak's constructs. That it appeared before High Council was inevitable from the first petition. But historically such proposals have been brought before and have been defeated by a wide margin. While such… radical views… have had their proponents, this simply does not have enough support in Council to pass."

"That's not what I meant. I was talking about us."

"About us." Sarek shook his head again. "Amanda, as I have tried to make clear, however you vote, it is extremely unlikely your personal legal status will change."

"Not my legal status. **Us**."

He tried harder to make her understand. "We will not change."

She was flabbergasted at his denseness. "Sarek, that is so … How could we **not**?"

Sarek paused, thinking about that, eyeing her warily. "Are you saying, you would be…angry…with me, for voting in opposition to you?"

She drew back a little at having the conflict laid out so bluntly. She had been rather thinking the opposite, that he would be embarrassed, or take it amiss or even that it would arouse his Vulcan ire, if his wife would oppose him before all of Vulcan, all of the Federation for that matter. It was something of a shock to have Sarek turn the tables on her so neatly. After all these years she still couldn't absolutely predict Vulcan behavior on these issues. But he had neatly hit the heart of the conflict. If he was unmoved by this issue, she was not, nor would be. But she was not ready to draw up battle lines yet. "I haven't said definitely that's how I'm going to vote."

He conceded that point with a flick of a brow. "I speak hypothetically as well. But you have not answered."

"No, not angry, but…." She looked at him, still placid and unmoved. "This has got to have some impact on us. And I want to know what we're getting into before we start."

He shook his head, his black eyes nothing more than slightly puzzled. "I don't understand."

Her own brow creased and she sighed. At times, getting Sarek to understand her emotions was like animating rock. It wasn't that he had no emotions – that she knew well. But his emotional triggers were not like hers, and sometimes, getting Sarek to see things though her eyes, or feel things she felt, or even understand her emotions intellectually, was difficult to impossible. And she wasn't sure she wanted to rouse that in him, even if she could. And right now her feelings on this were conflicted. "I'm not sure I do either, at the moment."

Sarek shrugged. "Then I strongly suggest you meditate on the issues and reach a conclusion. Swiftly," he added, handing her papers back. "Council convenes to vote on this in three days."

She stared at him, open mouthed. And then, not sure what to think, she took back her papers and left.

xxx

When she was confused about things Vulcan, and especially when she was potentially in opposition to Sarek, her best advisor was still T'Pau. She requested an audience with the matriarch. And when it was granted, she went with a particular purpose in mind. T'Pau owed her more than a few favors. She was determined to collect on at least one of them.

The ritual pleasantries over with, Amanda cut to the chase.

"T'Pau, regarding this upcoming council vote. I think you must somehow see me excused."

T'Pau raised a brow in mild surprise. She found her human daughter's directness sometimes amusing and sometimes refreshing. It was a minor indulgence in her later years. "Must I, indeed?"

Amanda flushed. No one told T'Pau what to do. She wasn't above the law, but she was above all the clans. "Forgive my impertinence. I spoke in need."

"But it is impossible, my daughter."

Amanda was dismayed. "You can't expect **me** to rule on this issue?"

"Thee consider thyself different from other women there who must rule?"

Amanda looked at her. "Very funny. You know that I am different."

"Thee are a clan leader who must render judgment. Thee are wife to a Vulcan. In those two most relevant points thee are the same."

"But there is a difference in how I **feel** about it."

"Do you think so?"

Amanda did a double take, looking at T'Pau. "May I ask how you are going to rule?"

"Against."

Amanda drew a breath. "Then you **don't** feel as I do." She shook her head. "Forgive me for presuming to ask. I didn't mean--"

"T'Amanda, one must make this decision based upon the merits of the case, and on the analysis of Surak's constructs."

"I'm hardly his biggest fan."

"That does not make thy interpretation any less valid."

"T'Pau you know Surak's constructs. The commentaries on them. You know them by heart, you can recite them backwards and forwards. So does Sarek. And all the other Council members. I've only read them. I am the rankest amateur. There is a difference in our qualifications."

"Are thee less qualified to rule on this issue than any other previous issues thee has ruled upon -- without seeking to evade that duty?"

"**You** put me in Council," Amanda accused.

"No. Thee did. When thee chose to marry my son."

"You know," Amanda pointed out, with some asperity, "when he asked me to marry him, he never **exactly** told me who he was. You could have said something to me then too, before all this started. I could claim false advertising. Or something."

"It is rather late for that, T'Amanda," T'Pau reminded her.

Amanda returned to serious business. "I am not qualified to rule in this case."

"Is it thy qualifications, or does thee now protest because this decision is painful to thee personally?"

She winced at that. "It **is** painful. But more importantly, it is dangerous. You know the risks to Sarek--"

"Personal considerations are outside of Council duties." T'Pau said blithely, and glanced at Amanda. "I think the risk is small, even if you vote in favor. Sarek is equal to it. This is not a personal matter, T'Amanda, such as what troubled your household before."

"How can I oppose him publicly in Council? If I so chose? I'm his wife."

"And his possession and will likely remain so. There are not the votes in Council for this to pass." She raised that brow again. "Even with your support."

"Then why **bring** it to Council?"

"It is the law of the land. The lower courts cannot render judgment on Surak's constructs. Council must reaffirm the law before this challenge."

Amanda winced at the word. "You say it matters not. But I am still concerned. He shouldn't have minded, so very much, that Spock went to Starfleet and yet--"

"He is free of the vrie. Surely you see that? It is obvious in his manner."

"I don't want to bring it back."

"It seems unlikely this could do so. T'Amanda, I wonder if thy concern is truly for Sarek? Or for thyself?"

"For him. For us both. For all of it, his health, our marriage, And if the law won't pass anyway…"

"Then what matter if you oppose him in Council?"

Amanda drew a shocked breath. "No. I can't."

"I think thee are conflicted, my daughter. Duty is not always easy."

"**That** you don't need to tell me."

"Perhaps not. But while you have undertaken difficult duties before, you had …emotional motivations for doing so. Motivations that served you to do so. Your motivations seem to be in opposition to your sworn duties here."

"I don't know what do to here. Or how I should vote. So, yes, I'd rather not vote at all."

"As to the latter, that I cannot help you with. It is your duty. You must attend Council. And you must vote. As to your decision, that you must come to, on your own. I can only suggest you meditate on the situation. And swiftly--"

Amanda winced at being given the same advice from T'Pau that Sarek had given her. "Yes, I know. Council votes in three days."

"I trust thee will do thy duty as always." And T'Pau held out her hands, a clear dismissal.

And no hope there. Amanda knelt to her in ritual obeisance and took her leave and her problem away unsolved.

xxx

As she went through the next few days, she kept wondering why the planet wasn't up in arms in one way or another. Whatever the Council decided, this would be a major decision, affecting the lives of most adults in one way or another.

Yet the event was only perfunctorily reported in the news, and if Vulcans were concerned about it, she saw no signs.

Sarek hadn't raised the issue again with her. Of course, she hadn't raised the issue with him either. And he wouldn't be likely to quiz her about her private "meditations" on the issue, unless she did raise it. Vulcans being sticklers in that regard. But she was still too confused to discuss it with him, and too reluctant until she was less confused. With Sarek, with her, with their joint history, she felt the stakes were too high to go blundering into that discussion. Even if Sarek were unmoved, she was not.

So she spent the next couple of days thinking about what she was going to do. See-saw-ing back and forth over how she was going to vote. Sometimes, teaching, or conferring with a colleague, the issue would creep up on her as if she was unaware and she would be amazed that she'd even considered voting against T'Lisel's petition. Hadn't she helped her own son leave Vulcan for Starfleet? Wasn't it hypocritical of her to put obstacles before this girl now? Did she believe just because T'Lisel was a girl, that she shouldn't have the same opportunities? What if she herself had borne a daughter? What would it say about herself if she didn't?

And didn't she think this was a law that should change? It was an archaic, out-moded law. Surely a culture as advanced as Vulcan didn't need to hold half their adult population as property.

Did she really think she could vote to keep herself in a state so antithetical to her own views of women?

The idea of voting against it was ludicrous.

But then she thought of Sarek. He was Vulcan. She was not. He surprised her continually with how alien he could be, outside of her human expectations. So ostensibly humanoid as Vulcans were, and calm and logical and rational in most things, she'd learned there was a Vulcan warrior buried inside a Vulcan male, and one that, once roused, was not so easily put to rest. And Vulcan biology, Pon Far and all the attitudes that went with it, was real and serious. She had surely learned her lesson in underestimating that syndrome. Their customs might sound barbaric to humans. But if Vulcans needed them…

How could she – who was she – to vote against such a traditional part of Vulcan culture, millennia old, even **pre** pre-Reform. She a mere human. Who could hardly be said to be facile on Vulcan law or Vulcan ethics.

Unable to resolve it for herself, she tried to resolve it for the Vulcans she was supposed to be representing. She watched couples, families, women, men compulsively that week. She watched mothers with children. She watched mothers with sons.

She began to wonder if society should be tailored for those that wanted to leave it, or those that planned to stay within it.

And then she thought of T'Lisel, prevented from leaving Vulcan, as Spock might have been if she had not been human. And she was torn again.

She still had no idea how she was going to vote.

xxx

She had to cancel a class to vote in Council. It was already in session when she arrived for the vote. She filed into the chamber with all the other Council members who were not normally present on a daily basis and were attending now only by the mandatory nature of this vote. She slid into her place next to Sarek, a little breathless from rushing. He spared her a glance but he was always at his most Vulcan in Council and there was nothing personal in his look. T'Pau favored her with a distant nod.

The legal advisors who had brought the case to Council ran through a précis of the case. Amanda saw with a trace of alarm that T'Lisel was also present at Council as was her bondmate, sitting each with their representatives. She looked at the girl searchingly, but there was no expression in her dark eyes, or on her features. She didn't look like Spock. She didn't appear to care one way or another about the outcome of the vote. Of course, she must know it was not going to pass.

But she thought of her own son, only a few years ago, desperate to be free, and her heart broke a little for her.

The voting had started and she listened to it absently. There were more in favor than she'd suspected, spatterings of yes votes here and there, but nothing near a margin for the proposal to pass. On a case such as this, a mandatory vote affecting the Constructs, votes were cast verbally, one by one. And her clan, as the most powerful and influential, always voted last. So there were hundreds of votes to be cast before hers. Lulled by the repetitive polls, she listened in almost a dreamy state as Vulcan after Vulcan voted, most giving the expected No.

The Vulcan reading the roster had a strong accent, mangling the human pronunciation of her name. She didn't recognize it when hers was called, half abstracted by her thoughts and the mesmerizing tenor of the vote.

"T'Amanda of the Xtmprszqzntwlfb clan?"

Sarek shifted infinitesimally next to her when she didn't respond.

She started out of her dreamy state and sat up.

"T'Amanda of the Xtmprszqzntwlfbclan." The speaker looked at her inquiringly.

Amanda swallowed and said nothing for a moment more. Looking down at her hands. Her palms made a damp imprint on the table, that dissipated immediately in the dry air. _I don't want to do this. Oh, T'Pau, why couldn't you get me out of it?_

"T'Amanda of Xtmprszqzntwlfbclan" the speaker said, a third and final time, eyes now a little wide in astonishment.

She found her voice at last. And drew a deep breath. "No," she said clearly. Her voice seemed to echo, ringing off the vaulted ceiling, coming back to haunt and mock her. But her vote was cast and could not be undone. Though Sarek could cancel it out, if he choose.

The speaker recorded the vote and moved to the next on his roster. "Sarek of the Xtmprszqzntwlfb clan?"

She met Sarek's eyes, half hoping, but he was still at his most Vulcan and nothing personal flickered in his expression as he gave his vote.

"No," Sarek said beside her.

It has been no more than she'd expected, really. But still, it was like a stab to her heart. She broke her gaze from those unrevealing eyes, lowering her own, hearing as if from afar the speaker going on to the last, the final vote.

"T'Pau, Matriarch of all Vulcan?"

"No," T'Pau said.

And then it was all over. The speaker announced the petition had failed, and was giving tallies and percentages. Amanda raised her eyes to T'Lisel, but the girl had not changed expression and was already being escorted out of the chamber.

This vote concluded the session. The rest of the council was also filing out, but Amanda didn't move. She heard Sarek deal with a few Council members, business issues, meetings, upcoming votes, all as casual and prosaic as if this were some agricultural bill on plomeek subsidies. She felt Sarek turn and look at her, but she didn't, she couldn't look up. Finally she felt him slide into his seat next to her.

"Did it make a difference?" he asked.

She did look up then. If he were being flip about this. If he was teasing her… But his eyes were serious. Calm. A little puzzled and curious. But not amused.

"To the Council vote? No. Just as you said."

"I meant between us."

She looked up again, searching his eyes. She couldn't read him. He was still being very controlled. "You voted against it, Sarek."

"So did you."

She drew up, at that betrayal by him. "Oh, for **very** different reasons!"

"Do you think so?"

She lowered her head. "I don't know what to think."

He was silent a moment. "Then do not judge, Amanda."

"I didn't have a choice in that."

"Don't you?"

"So I've been told. I was required to be here, and I came. And the vote is already past. It's a little late to tell me not to judge."

"I meant do not judge me."

She looked up at him again. But there was still no expression in his eyes or on his face. She felt a million miles away from him. "Can we talk about this?" she asked. "Is it even possible that we can discuss this?"

Sarek tilted his head. "Have we anything to say?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure if we can ever meet on this decision."

"You rendered a decision. One in accordance with mine, though I confess I am puzzled by that given your previous--"

"Can you even understand how I feel about this vote? About this issue?"

Sarek drew a breath. "I think…that I do."

"But you voted no, anyway. How could you?"

Sarek paused, considering her. "Did you think this would be an O. Henry scenario, Amanda? Your sacrifice for mine, mine for yours? That you would vote no , and I yes?"

"I told you I don't know what to think."

"It is not such a scenario."

"So I have discovered."

"You surely did not expect it."

"I didn't know what to expect, even of myself. I'm finding this all very hard."

"Some decisions, my wife, are not personal."

She looked up at him. "But the outcomes **are**."

Sarek caught her hand. "Amanda. Nothing has changed between us."

That was not the answer she wanted to hear. She slid her fingers out from his, rejecting the gesture. "I have to get back to the Academy. My task here is done."

xxx

She taught the rest of her morning classes and then before the noon break, received a message to attend T'Pau. The attendants had laid out a pretty mid-day meal, T'Pau's main meal, for the matriarch never ate a heavy meal in the evening now that she was in her later years. But Amanda could not join her at the table. Instead, she paced, railing at what she had just been through. T'Pau watched her.

"I hate it, she said. "It is so barbaric."

"Pon Far," the Matriarch said.

"Not the Time itself. But what it means to Vulcans. What it does to Vulcans. You don't even speak of it, you don't even name it, in public. But you build your lives and your culture around your fear of it. It is so ridiculous. Tell me your suppression of emotion isn't just your warrior past, but also related to your fear of Pon Far? I think it is."

T'Pau was unmoved. "Named or not, Pon Far is a force of our nature."

"Nature is cruel."

"Yes."

"Vulcans are **not**. Warrior past aside, this …continued obsession is unworthy of you. Surely with all your abilities, your technology, you can find some alternative. Some drug, some treatment."

"There were attempts. They caused many deaths."

"But you are so technologically advanced. And now you have the combined forces of the Federation -- You could be free."

"What you are saying, T'Amanda, is that you could be free."

Amanda stopped in mid-pace, staring at her. "That's not what I meant."

"Free to be human, as you are not free now."

Amanda shook her head, not in denial but in rejection of this personal argument. "I wasn't speaking only of myself. This affects all Vulcans."

"We accept our biology, T'Amanda. It is what we are."

"How can you say that," Amanda scorned. "You don't accept your emotions. They are also what you are."

"Emotions can be controlled. Biology, one's life force, cannot, not if the species is to continue." She looked pityingly at Amanda. "Do you think a pill, an injection, a treatment, could change Vulcan biology? I tell you it has been tried and the results were more monstrous than the syndrome they strove to eliminate. Or there was death. The life force of Vulcans can not be subdued or transformed."

"So you subdue your women instead? Hardly an equable compromise."

Life is a paradox. As a race, as a leader, one must choose options that are best for one's people."

"Best?

"That save the most lives. That advance civilization. Vulcan lived in continual clan wars before Surak's philosophies and his peace."

"Making woman property advances civilization? I fail to see how."

"Not women. Bondmates."

"A fine distinction."

"T'Amanda, males fought constantly, and killed over women, or died in the mating fever, in madness, before our marriage laws and customs. Bonding and our present laws and customs changed that. You are free in every way, save one, and that you have already sworn over to your mate. What matter the law holds you so, when your own oaths bind you? And I know you do not forswear your oaths."

"It matters." But she had nothing but her own personal feelings to counteract T'Pau's historical claims. And she knew it was not enough. Not in this case.

T'Pau shook her head. "Daughter, your emotions are not serving you well now. You are exhausting yourself. Sit."

Amanda sank down. "I voted against myself, T'Pau. I voted against **myself**."

"Did you?" T'Pau said, flicking a brow at this return to the personal.

Amanda twisted in her chair. "I am human. Freedom…it's practically my birthright. A human birthright. As inviolate as Vulcan biology. Oh, yes, in the Federation other beings practice slavery as an established system. But in the history of humanity, no state of slavery has ever long endured. It is inimical to our basic nature. To me. And yet I just upheld one."

"Thee considered thyself a slave?" T'Pau raised a brow ironically as an attendant began to serve luncheon. "If so, thee are a privileged one, to sit at Council and render judgment on a world. On many worlds, Vulcan and all her colonies."

"Slavery isn't always chains." Amanda argued. She waved away the offered meal. "If women are property, it's slavery of a form. And I agreed to it. I am so ashamed of myself."

"If thee voted in favor, thee must believe in it."

Amanda just raised her eyes to T'Pau. "Believe? Believe that I, that any woman, should be some man's property? No. Never." She raised her head and glared at T'Pau as if in accusation. "Sarek is not the only one to say _never_. This is that for me, and I won't change."

"Why so vote, then?"

Amanda lowered her head, cheeks flushing in shame. "I thought of Sarek. I thought of Spock."

"Yes." T'Pau nodded her head.

"And not just them, all the other Vulcan males."

"Yes."

"It's my freedom. Our freedom. And it is dear to me. But it's their lives."

"Yes." T'Pau nodded, agreeing again.

"How could I choose otherwise?"

"Yes."

"But what an awful -- what a terrible, monstrous, choice."

"Yes. Thee understands perfectly, daughter."

Amanda curled in on herself. "No. Because I know it isn't Vulcan, for me to feel this hatred. For I do hate it! All the circumstances that require this terrible choice. Vulcan biology and passion and custom and tradition. I hate it, I hate it, I hate **all** of it!"

"And still thee chose. In spite of your _never_."

"Yes," Amanda echoed. "I chose it. And I'd choose it again. The alternatives being what they are." She looked at T'Pau. "Don't you understand?In this, I had no choice."

T'Pau regarded her passionlessly. Then rising carefully for her aged bones and crossing to Amanda, she lifted her face. Looking at the tears swimming in her eyes, that Amanda tried to blink away. "I think, my daughter, when I am gone, that someday thee will make a very wise matriarch."

Amanda did cry then, while T'Pau stood above her, hand on her cheek, the tears rolling on the matriarch's aged skin.

_To be continued_

17


	2. Chapter 2

**Decision at Council**

By

Pat Foley

Chapter 2

She pulled herself together, went back to teach the remainder of her classes. Coming home at the end of the day, listening to the news on her flyer's communication systems, she heard the Vulcan newscaster reporting the decision of High Council to vote down the petitioner T'Lisel's request to overturn the existing property laws regarding wives and consorts. The voice rattled off the vote tallies and the major clans' positions pro and con as unemotionally as if it were no more than a plomeek subsidy. The newscaster's voice was young, female; she was no doubt bonded, consort or wife, and Amanda wondered how she felt about it. Or if she felt anything at all.

The newscast didn't mention Amanda by name, but it reported that clan Xtmprszqzntwlfb voted unanimously against the petition.

Hearing it broadcast to all the planet, all the colonies, all the Federation, made her cheeks flame anew. What had she done?

Everything looked the same when she arrived home, a little late, given she'd made up her noon office hours after classes. All Vulcan efficiency as usual. The guard met her as she flew through the forcescreens and took her flyer off her hands to the hanger. Another guard let her through the gates, bracing as she passed. Inside, a gardener, pruning one of the elaborate topiaries in the formal gardens, nodded deferentially, at his feet a bird's nest he'd disturbed in his pruning. The evicted birds perched on the garden wall above him. T'Jar came tripping up and told her tea would be ready on the terrace shortly. And that Sarek was home already and waiting there for her.

For a moment, she paused in the great hall, almost unwilling to see him. She really didn't want to see him. She wanted to go to her room, curl in a ball, throw a sheet over her head, and never come out.

Fine clan leader she made.

And so she drew a breath and went out to the terrace.

He was discussing something with an aide, and she paused, hesitating, unwilling to break in on their conversation. But he looked up, saw her, and sent the aide away.

Amanda approached the table reluctantly. "I don't want to interrupt."

"Our discussion was concluded. Come." He gestured with a hand, and she noticed as if for the first time, how assured he was. Always was, really . But today she felt like she'd been through a wringer. And there he sat, calm, controlled, logical. As if nothing had happened today at all.

She sat down, not knowing where to look, or what to think.

"Amanda?"

She shook her head. "I can't, Sarek. I can't pretend nothing has changed, that things will go on just as they had before."

He frowned slightly. "You perceive that something has changed?"

"Of course something has changed."

"Because of Council."

"Yes."

"Amanda…the resolution was not upheld. The laws remain the same."

"That's not what I meant."

"You perceive something has changed between us?"

"How can it have not?"

His brow furrowed. "Do you think that I have changed? Toward you? Or in basic philosophy"

She shifted uncomfortably. Sarek had never indicated before any great dissatisfaction with the status of female bondmates, wives, on Vulcan. "No. You haven't changed."

"Then as the laws remain unchanged, and I have not changed, you must perceive the change within yourself."

She flushed anew. But didn't answer.

He looked at her pointedly. "Is that not so?"

She shivered, then trembled, resisting it. "No. Sarek. I **can't** do this."

"But …you did."

"You made me do this."

"Amanda, it was your sworn duty to--"

"Not the Council vote, " she said. "But how I voted. How could you **make** me feel this way?"

"Amanda," Sarek drew back, startled.

"When we married," she said, "You promised me you'd never make me Vulcan." She closed her eyes, turning her face away. "And you **broke** that promise."

"No," he shook his head. "I did not. Amanda, this you came to on your own."

"I'm not saying that you forced me into it," she countered hotly, "but you – you and your whole culture –" she floundered, stopped, still unaccountably confused.

When she did not continue, Sarek eyed her and offered, "I confess to some…surprise…at your vote in Council." His eyes met hers, alien in that way that Vulcans can seem, at once detached and yet with a power that warned everyone there was a predator there, leashed only by will. And yet almost, always, leashed. Sarek expressing surprise meant that her very Vulcan husband could not be more puzzled. But he was never-the-less still detached, removed by force of will from her emotional confusion. "I do not understand myself how you came to that conclusion. But I respect that you had the right, the obligation, to so choose. Your choice – and your feelings – you came to on your own."

She said nothing for a long moment. She had no real argument against his assertion. And argument was the last thing on her mind. She didn't want to be right. She wanted some surcease from the emotional fallout of her decision.

"Amanda?"

She drew a shaky breath. "Will I ever be the same again, Sarek? As I was before?"

Sarek paused for almost an equal time, evaluating her distress with dispassionate eyes and then said, "Perhaps not."

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "Can you even love me?"

Sarek's brows rose in astonishment. "Can I--"

She rode over his Vulcan reticence in that regard, to strike to the heart of her issues. "I'm **not** what I was before. I'm not even sure I like **myself** – after what I just did. No, I don't like myself. I can't. And you shouldn't either. What I did was --"

"Amanda." Sarek shook his head. "Do you think yourself less for this? It is not true. Making such a difficult decision -- you are **more** than you were."

"No. It doesn't feel that way. No."

"No." Sarek considered, watching her. "I expect that it would not. Feel that way. Nevertheless it is so."

"I never thought anything not physical could **hurt** this much."

"I am sorry." He looked at her doubtfully. "Do you regret your decision?"

She laughed, wiping her face. "You can even ask?"

"I regret that the Council vote cannot be undone. But I meant, were you to vote again, would you change your decision?"

She swallowed hard. What an awful question to ask her. And yet, only a Vulcan would ask. And expect a rational answer. "No." She said it through choked teeth, but she got the word out. Then she looked up at him. He seemed neither relieved nor dismayed by her answer. As if it had no personal relevance for him. Perhaps it didn't. "Would you vote the same way, now?"

He nodded. "Yes. Without hesitation."

"Why?"

"It may not be a perfect solution for every individual," Sarek admitted candidly. "Nothing could be. But it has worked well for our people for millennia. And much preferable to what occurred before the reforms. It acknowledges what we are, in those areas that require such measures. And yet it goes no further, into areas that are not essential."

Not a personal decision. And yet it was, for her. "I'm free in every way, save one," Amanda said, quoting T'Pau.

Sarek flicked an eyebrow at her changing the discussion from the abstract to the figurative. "Yes."

She shook her head, not liking the answer. But she did not have a better one. She looked around her, the gardens, the staff here and there, the ruby sky overhead, all prosaic, unchanged. Vulcan. And then looked at Sarek. Who met her eyes, undaunted. Unashamed at these exigencies.

"I'm the only one that's changed," she said.

Sarek hesitated at an unqualified affirmative. And settled for, "Everything changes every moment, Amanda. We change, continually."

"And some things don't change."

"True. Your …status…has not changed in that regard. You are as you were before." He offered that fact as if it might help.

"But** before, **I didn't choose it. Then, it was just what was."

"You did choose it. As part of the consequences of bonding to me."

"No," she denied, and when he said nothing, she said. "I didn't understand."

Something of the personal crossed in Sarek's eyes before it vanished under his control. He only said, "Amanda. You were well advised. You did."

"I was twenty. I was in love. I didn't care."

"The latter is certainly not true."

"I didn't really believe--" she began, and then, at Sarek's raised brow, subsided. She wasn't sure she could ever make him understand how she had largely discounted so much of what the healers had told her as fantastic nonsense, incompatible with the controlled, cultured diplomat who had sought her. She had thought they exaggerated, that in their own Vulcan delicacy they had overblown the least lack of control out of all proportion.

And afterwards? After seeing how devastated he was by Pon Far himself, how shattered Vulcan males were after first experiencing that loss of control, her own amazement had been …trivial in comparison. After all, she had been warned; she'd just chosen not to believe.

Now she understood that they had, if not understated the case, had at least been stating the true nature of Vulcan biology with all the tactfulness Vulcans adopted with that subject. Now she knew they had been uncharacteristically blunt with her, so much so that in looking back, knowing how reticent Vulcans were, she was shocked at how blunt they had been. And even with all that, she had not really understood. Or believed. Perhaps no human every really could. Strange how, after all these years, she was becoming more in agreement with T'Pau's belief that Vulcans should not marry outworlders. It wasn't prejudice. It was a lifetime's experience of understanding how little the Vulcan spirit could bend in certain ways. And that left the non-Vulcan partner in a very unequal position, in more than one respect. Amanda knew she had risen to those requirements. But it had not been easy, and there had been only too many times she'd wondered if they would make it. Others might not be so fortunate.

"Even so, I chose it only for myself."

Sarek nodded equably. "And now you share the responsibility of choosing for others. Even those in opposition to your decision. The duties of a clan leader are not always pleasant."

Amanda shook her head. "It's an awful legacy I've just given."

"No." Sarek countered. "The awful legacy is what we now strive to avoid. And on the whole, succeed."

"At drastic expense."

"It is a compromise. Civilizations are built on such compromises. Where they are better than the alternatives, they must be considered progress."

She looked at him. He seemed so sure, so resolute. Discussing this as if he were debating in Council, no qualms or questions in his mind. "It has been 5000 years since the reforms, " she said truculently. "Progress seems to me to be awfully slow."

"Our biology remains unchanged. In this, we are what we are. Vulcan." His eyes met hers and she realized he was including her in that category. And **that** left her shaken. Obviously one couldn't remain an outworlder long, married to a Vulcan. Bonded to Vulcan biology as much as to one's spouse. Well, she knew that. Was reminded of it with every Pon Far.

And that fate fell to the others for whom she'd just rendered judgment as well as to herself. Even if twenty years after the fact, she still resisted, refused to accept, what she had chosen. And what she had chosen again. It hadn't been easy the first time. It wasn't easy still. "I hope the future will forgive me," she said. "Because I'm not sure I can. Or will."

Sarek glanced at her. "You do not bear this responsibility alone."

"Yes. But you are wrong in one thing. It is personal. I made it for myself as well. I never had to do that before."

"You did. When you chose to marry me."

She shook her head, wondering if she could ever make him see how unprepared she'd been to make that choice. He began from such a far different place than she, at times it seemed impossible that he could make that leap. No more than she could, still, twenty years and a myriad of shared Pon Fars after the fact. Even with vrie and a six month stint as chattel to her credit, something in her still refused to acknowledge that fact, the necessity, the stark Vulcan reality of his biology that was so anathema to human experience, to her own human heritage. In that, they would always be alien to each other. "Oh, Sarek, you give me too much credit. I didn't **really** understand. And when I did, I tried to ignore it. Gloss over it. Not confront it. It's not at all like slamming the door of the cage on an entire sex. Which I just did. Because now I feel…like a bird in that cage. Wings beating."

"But you are not alone."

"No," she said, in dark acknowledgement. "I just consigned my fellow sisters to the same fate. At least in that, I am Vulcan."

"That was not my meaning," Sarek said, obviously finding her as obtuse in this discussion as she found him, but as always, calmer and more patient in their disagreements. At least, with no specter of _Pon Far_ or _vrie_ undermining his present control. "I meant there are two birds in the cage, Amanda. You are **not** alone."

"That's easy for **you** to say," she threw it at him, unforgivingly. She knew he couldn't help his biology. But still, he had voted No. "**You** are not property."

"No." Sarek said. "I am a Vulcan male."

She looked at him, truculent again. "And as your wife, I'm your property under the Vulcan law I just voted to uphold. And I don't like it, Sarek. Can't you understand that? Can you even try to conceive how I feel about it? Because I don't like it. Not one little bit. I don't care how much or how little relevance it has in most everyday things. It still hurts. Part of me will never accept it. And please don't take that as some kind of threat or challenge to our bond, because it isn't. I can't help it, no more than you can help your own biology."

"Do you think I do not feel your pain?"

She shook her head. "No. Not as I feel it."

"No, I can't experience or know it as you do. Not entirely. But perhaps… nor can you know mine." He said it slowly, as if reluctant to grant even that deficiency to her. He tilted her head, his keen eyes looking at her closely, evaluatingly. "At least, I think not. Perhaps it is impossible for any female, bonded or not. Human or Vulcan. Perhaps this is…an unbreachable gulf…between us." He looked down, dark eyes shadowed as if in pain at that thought. "Though I hope not," he added, in a low tone, almost to himself. "In part, that is what the bond is meant to… help alleviate."

She looked down as well, shamed. "I know Vulcan biology is an awful monster. To hold us so in its thrall. Both of us. I know that it holds both of us."

"But it is not as awful, when met together," Sarek offered.

She looked up at him. "Can we say it really is together, if one of us isn't …free?"

"Amanda, do you not yet understand? Neither of us is free."

"But you must feel more free than myself. At least you don't have a law that--"

"Laws can be changed, my wife," Sarek said, slowly, a line between his brows as if he was finding this a struggle to explain, though otherwise still as calm as if he were unmoved. As if this were a discussion of nothing more important than plomeek subsidies. Only a stillness in his manner testified to his control. "You had the opportunity to attempt that today. You might even have succeeded. Or someone else, someday. But biology, for a Vulcan male, **is** inescapable. I am far more a prisoner, Amanda. As is every other Vulcan male."

She swallowed hard at that image. Even after all these years, Sarek still was reluctant to discuss _Pon Far_, even name the syndrome, and still less his own feelings about his biology. It had made her uneasy to raise this issue with him before the Council vote, or when this had come up before, in other situations. And uneasy even now to pursue it. But Sarek was discussing it, and if he would, then she could. And after all the healer's instructions, after all the years of seeing Sarek's cycle come and go, even after _vrie_, she still she found it hard to accept or excuse the exigency of Surak's long ago made countermeasure. "Do you really **have** to hold your women in legal thrall? It's so …uncivilized. It's unworthy of you."

"It is the last legal vestige of our pre-Reform heritage," Sarek said, obliquely reminding her she was free in all other respects.

"Not the last," Amanda said darkly, thinking that the chattel state was still legal. She wasn't sure which was more anathema, holding all bonded women to one tacit stricture of possession, or holding only a handful as outright property.

"You voted for the law to be upheld. Knowing you, you must have had the strength of your conviction to vote that way."

She shook her head at that.

"Then why?" Sarek asked.

She looked up at him. She still couldn't explain that decision to him. Even less so to herself. Part of it certainly, was that she hadn't felt ready to take on all of Vulcan, certainly not with Sarek in opposition. Not when she still felt so unsure what the outcomes might or could be. And that was the heart of her uncertainty. What if she could change this law. Even outlaw the chattel state. Would she do it, knowing Sarek, or even Spock's, life might stand forfeit for it some day, should vrie return from the mists of pre-Reform legend? Was her freedom worth any price?

To a human, that answer was clear. It was not even in question.

But to a Vulcan?

The answer, as horrifying to her now as it had been then, but still as certain as it had been when T'Pau had first broached the possibility, was no. Human though she was. No.

That conviction shackled her more than any law. What had T'Pau said? What matter the law, when her own convictions, her own oaths, bound her more fully than any law?

But still, she had to know…

She swallowed hard. "What if I had voted against it?"

Sarek tilted his head. "I would have known you had a good reason."

"That's it? That's all?" She was shocked, astounded at his equable answer.

Sarek glanced at her again, uncertain and uneasy at her emotional response. "What more would you ask of me? As I had predicted, the law would have remained unchanged with or without your vote."

She looked at him mulishly.She didn't quite accept, or believe his Vulcan calm. "And what if I had organized a political action committee to get the votes in Council to **change** the law."

"You were welcome to try," Sarek offered. "As a clan leader those decisions are yours to make. Yet the biology would have remained unchanged."

"It wouldn't have bothered you?"

"I have already pledged to let you go, Amanda," Sarek pointed out. "This is… minor… in comparison."

She winced at that. So he had. Made that promise out of as professed love for her, unVulcan though it was. Even the thought of the consequences to Sarek made her shudder. She understood that now, as she never had when she'd married, healer's words aside. She hadn't, then, had the experience to understand.

"But I wouldn't have made it just for me," she answered.

"Yes. As for others…" Sarek paused, and then said reluctantly, "There would be, no doubt, some more deaths."

She closed her eyes, caught up in the images that Sarek's blunt statement raised. This was no game. No mere play of words or egos to Vulcans. This was biology. As inescapable as a heart bearting.

"But there have always been casualties of Pon Far," Sarek reminded her. "Have been and will continue to be. Our laws and customs merely strive to lessen them."

She looked at him, evaluating his control. He was usually so reluctant to speak the name of that dreaded state, but he had been calm, his control unwavering throughout this situation. And speaking of it so easily. Had he known her that well? Or had the situation, the knowledge that nothing would change in Council, left him so unmoved? While she, who in the past always had been impatient with how Vulcans over-dramatized Pon Far, had been the one torn in shreds here. Perhaps, with Sarek's near fatal chronic fever, she was too close to the situation to view it objectively. She only knew she would not risk that, for her husband. Or her son. And if not for them, then for no Vulcan. Even as it locked her own status in a way her human nature found unconscionable. Well, her knowledge had taken her twenty years. Perhaps acceptance would come in a shorter time. She didn't know whether to hope for it, or be appalled by that. And something in her was still appalled that there was even that question in her mind.

"Let us not discuss it, Sarek. I know there is no simple solution. But there will be no additional deaths based on any decision I make in Council."

"We are in reasonable accord then," Sarek said. "As much as we can, given our separate circumstances," he added when she looked at him askance at that assumption.

And yet, her decision reaffirmed, she still couldn't just go on. Knowing she had made the right, the only decision she could have made in Council, didn't help her personally. "Tell me this will hurt less, in time," she pled, even though she knew what she asked for was not in his power to grant.

Sarek hesitated, considering her. "In time, you will **feel** it less."

She shook her head sadly. "That's not the same thing."

"It… is not," Sarek admitted. "You will…gloss over it. Not confront it. Try to overlook it."

She looked up at him. He said those words with less than perfect control, as if they had some personal relevance. And perhaps she understood why. She hadn't known, hadn't really thought, about what her ambivalence regarding the Vulcan aspects of her marriage had done to Sarek, all these years. How he must have felt, knowing she was less than committed, by Vulcan standards. Even if it was from her own human nature. She had hurt him, simply by her own human values, hurt him unknowing, but none the less. And was going on hurting him. And yet he forgave her for it. Glossed over it. Didn't confront it. Overlooked it. Intellectually. He had no choice. She was as human as he was Vulcan. But emotionally? Vulcans controlled but they were there in them, none the less. Even he probably hadn't overdwelt on what her emotions in this regard had done to him.

"But you will always feel it," Sarek continued, as if it were something he knew beyond all fact. "As shall I," he added, when she looked up to confirm that in his eyes.

"Yes," she agreed, finally convinced of that. And reached across the table and took his hand. The gesture she'd rejected when he'd offered it after Council. His fingers curled around hers, protective, possessive, the warmth of his hand, even after all these years, reminding her of fever. Turning her thoughts to the Fever that was inevitable, inescapable for every Vulcan male.

What fools they both had been.

Years ago, the healers had warned her, advised her against marriage to a Vulcan male, claiming the ancient passions, the loss of control, were not for outworlders. Disbelieving a human could accept the role of a Vulcan bondmate, T'Pau had for years refused to accept her as Sarek's wife. Even when Pon Far had come and gone, even after Amanda had personal experience of the fever, of the madness of the Time, some part of **her** had refused to accept what it meant to Vulcans, what it did to Vulcans. Loss of control, passion, was no great failing for a human. She never understood, even with Sarek, what it really meant for him, to be so overtaken, never fully accepted his deep fears. She'd always made light of it, thinking **that **was what he'd needed.

But perhaps it had been the opposite, perhaps she'd been wrong all along, her casual air convincing him that she didn't fully understand or appreciate his inhuman dilemma. A Vulcan male in the grip of the Fever must mate, or die. He'd fight any challenger, kill in a hormonally induced frenzy, driven by nature to take or keep his mate. And if unsuccessful, would die in agony. She knew that, intellectually. She'd experienced something of it, second hand, emotionally. But to really feel it, as Sarek did? Not just for a moment's shared mindtouch, or, secondhand through a few days of Pon Far, but to live with it, as Sarek did, knowing you had a clock ticking within you, that when the last second ticked down on that interval from Time to Time, your reason would be gone, your power of will, your free choice, vanished as if it had never been. That you had become an animal force, reduced to bestial instincts, a hormonal rut that would end in mating, or madness and death. And that your life was now entirely dependent upon another yielding to that madness, one every Vulcan professed distasteful. And that your bondmate would yield as well. And knowing that even with a Vulcan bondmate, nothing was certain. Challenge was always possible.

She could almost forgive the long dead Surak for his exigencies. And understand why he was so revered among Vulcans, if he'd dragged them from madness and violence, war and murder to discipline, logic and peace. Apart from the periodic madness biology forced upon them.

No, she didn't, couldn't know what Sarek lived with. Perhaps knowing that she'd met him in vrie, had not challenged, had stayed with him afterward, would ease him somewhat in the future. He was different now, more like what he'd been in the first few years after they'd married, less what he'd been in the years leading up to vrie. She took her own responsibility for that change.

After Spock had been born, after she and Sarek had begun to disagree about his upbringing, she'd often been in contention with him over Spock, had threatened to leave him several times. Sometimes it had felt like her only trump card. Knowing it was an ultimate threat, weapon, that she had in her hands. One that he could not counter; one that he was helpless against, for all his power and position in Vulcan society. Nature made every Vulcan male equal in that respect. And whatever inequities women faced in Vulcan society, at least periodically they held the power of life and death over their husbands.

She had used that weapon when she felt she had to, when as a mother she'd felt it had been her only option. And she'd been wrong. She had not fully appreciated what that had meant for Sarek. Or perhaps she had, and had not cared. Her own human maternal instincts triumphing over his Vulcan ones. She'd felt like she'd had no choice. Sarek so often seemed so overwhelmingly powerful to her. She was after all, living in his culture, his society. And she had been at least in part outcast from that, never fully accepted in the clan. She done what she felt she'd had to. But she had been wrong.

What she had done to Sarek all these years, challenging and threatening their bond at the worst of times as if it were some argumental trump card. Or making light of the fever even with the best of intentions, out of love. Questioning and challenging the disciplines Sarek had imposed on them to help get them both through it safely, trying to argue the reason for them rationally. All of it so wrong, so threatening, by Vulcan standards.

She bore the responsibility for that.

But now Spock was gone, and she had stayed and perhaps, perhaps that accounted for something of Sarek's new found peace. It was a peace she owed to him. Had pledged to him.

What matter the law indeed, before such oaths.

She had made a choice, years ago. A decision she'd been well counseled for, even as imperfectly has her human mind had comprehended this Vulcan reality. It had been one she'd known could not be unchosen.

Perhaps not even a Vulcan woman could't fully understand it. How many times Sarek would patiently explain something to her, and then ask, almost despairingly, if she understood. No, she hadn't really. And perhaps never would, or could, even as he couldn't fully understand her. Forever alien to each other in some respects. 

But she had chosen. As T'Lisel had chosen. And obligations had to be met, in all honor.

Accepting that, she could almost be at peace for her decision at Council. For herself. And for those for whom she had the responsibilities to make such decisions.

And with Sarek, she could not really feel alone.

They sat there in silence, hand in hand under the ruby sky. The sun lowered a little more; shadows lengthened across the court. The gardener pruning the topiary finished his work and restored the bird's nest. She watched the birds fly down to examine their home, changed and yet unchanged. Sheathing his tools, the old gardener moved on, his tasks finished.

She sighed softly, in acceptance, and felt Sarek's fingers tighten on hers. A most unVulcan gesture, but one he frequently broke Vulcan conventions to make. They met where they could. They weren't all her own compromises. Though some things could have no compromise. She returned the pressure of his hand, in acceptance of that. Two birds. Both wings beating against the bars of that unyielding cage. But together.

The sun dipped further, the angles of the shadows sharper, darker, deeper, color fading from the desert, reducing everything to dark and light. Black and white. So much easier to make decisions, when a fading light reduced everything to essential components. Soon the nighttime predators would arise, and rule the desert again. Till dawn brought back the light and the subtlety of color.

Across the court, the play of light threw the shadow of the barred gate across the paving stones, darker, deeper, higher than it was in reality. Still the same gate. Essential only in the darkness. In the night, when civilization withdrew, and the predators reigned.

She held Sarek's hand in acceptance of that. The gate wasn't the issue. It was merely the guardian between the desert and home. Wildness and civilization. Darkness and light.

When the sun rose, the shadows of patterned bars spilling larger than life across the court would disappear, as if they'd never been. Until the sun dipped again. And in the sunshine? The gate opened. It was perfectly safe to go out then.

"I understand, Sarek," she said, though he hadn't asked the question.

He looked at her, and his other hand covered hers, and she felt the light brush of his mind. No words, just a feeling. Perfectly acceptable between bondmates, if unVulcan otherwise. And yet a light that challenged all darkness.

"I do understand," she said, not to him, but for herself.

And then, just as if it were any other evening, T'Jar brought out the tea.

_Fini_

**Decision at Council**

By

Pat Foley

Part of Holography, Series 3-D

November 2005

At Brookwood

References:

Henry, O, "Gift of the Magi", Four Million, 1906

15


End file.
